The Hidden Light

When I speak of God, or of the Lord, I mean Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Jesus Christ, God was manifest in the flesh.^1,2,3,4 Yahweh gave this country something almost no people in history have held: ordinary citizens choosing their own leaders. This film is about what we do with that gift.

In October of 2026, cities across France burned. Protests turned into riots. France’s president blamed far-left groups joined by criminals.⁵ Others blamed young migrants.⁶ In Paris, Palestinian flags flew at the Place de la République.⁷ Shops were looted in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and Bordeaux, and a nineteenth-century city hall went up in flames.⁵ In February of 2026, in Italy, more than a hundred police officers were hurt in riots in Turin.⁸ We have seen it here, too. In the summer of 2020, American cities burned. In Minneapolis, a police station was set on fire,⁹ and the damage across the country ran past a billion dollars, the costliest civil disorder in the history of American insurance.¹⁰ And that bill did not stay in those cities. It was spread across the premiums of everyone who carries insurance.¹¹

Sources 5–11

Source 5CBS News“French police arrest more than 1,800 people after violent protests erupt across country” (October 18, 2026)“the looting of hundreds of businesses in many cities including Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux.”Read the original at cbsnews.com ↗ Source 6France 24“Around the world, far right blames immigrants for French protests” (October 21, 2026)Read the original at france24.com ↗ Source 7The Media Line“France, Italy Hit by Riots as Palestinian Flags Appear” (October 18, 2026)“Photographs showed protesters carrying Palestinian and French flags at Place de la République”Read the original at themedialine.org ↗ Source 8Fox News“Italy rocked by anarchist-led riots as over 100 police injured, Meloni condemns violence” (February 2, 2026)“Italian authorities said 108 security personnel were injured in the violence.”Read the original at foxnews.com ↗ Source 9Associated Press via OPB“Minneapolis Police Station Set On Fire During Protests Over George Floyd's Death” (May 29, 2020)“Cheering protesters torched a Minneapolis police station that the department abandoned.”Read the original at opb.org ↗ Source 10Axios“Exclusive: $1 billion-plus riot damage is most expensive in insurance history” (September 2020)“will result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims.”Read the original at axios.com ↗ Source 11National Association of Insurance Commissioners“A Regulator's Introduction to the Insurance Industry,” pp. 6–7 and 23“Members of the group share all losses that are incurred by its members.”Read the original at content.naic.org ↗

None of that happens overnight. It comes one quiet season at a time, when ordinary people stop keeping watch over who governs them, what those leaders tolerate, and what they do while the field goes untended. There is an old word for that, and almost nobody knows it anymore: acedia. It means not caring. Letting what you were given go to ruin because you cannot be bothered. This is where America is headed if we do not wake up.

“I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.”¹²

Solomon wrote that three thousand years ago.¹³ Look at what he describes. There is no man in the picture, only a field. Somebody owned it. Somebody was given it. And somebody let it go.

Source 13

Source 13Britannica“Solomon” (flourished c. 975–c. 926 BCE)Read the original at britannica.com ↗

Drive any county road in this country and you will see that field. You will see it in a house, in a body, in a family, in a church. And every couple of years you can see it in a room with a row of empty voting booths.

We have a word for this. We have been using it wrong.

I grew up thinking sloth meant lazy. The man who will not get off the couch. The Bible’s picture is wider than that.

The Hebrew word in Proverbs is atsel, the sluggard.¹⁴ Watch what he does. He will not plow when it is cold, so at harvest he has nothing.¹⁵ He says there is a lion in the street, so he stays home.¹⁶ And Solomon keeps pointing at the result. “By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.”¹⁷ The roof leaks because of what a man did not do.

Source 14

Source 14Blue Letter BibleStrong's H6102 ʿāṣēl (“sluggard,” “slothful”)“sluggish, lazy”Read the original at blueletterbible.org ↗

When Jesus tells of the servant who buried his master’s money, the master calls him wicked and slothful. The Greek word there is oknēros. It means hesitant. Shrinking back. Unwilling to act.¹⁸

Source 18

Source 18Bible HubStrong's G3636 oknēros: “slothful, lazy, idle”; NAS Exhaustive Concordance: “shrinking, timid”“shrinking, timid, hence idle, lazy, troublesome”Read the original at biblehub.com ↗

Centuries later, monks in the Egyptian desert gave the condition another name: acedia. Literally, “without care.”¹⁹ A monk named Evagrius described it in the three hundreds,²⁰ and it later entered the list we call the seven deadly sins, where English translated it “sloth.”²¹ That list is church tradition. You will not find it in Scripture. But the thing it names is there. Paul told the Romans, “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.”²² The word he used for business means zeal.²³ Sloth is zeal gone cold.

Sources 19–21, 23

Source 19Merriam-Webster“acedia”: from Greek akēdḗs, “without care or worry”“uncared for, without care or worry”Read the original at merriam-webster.com ↗ Source 20Columba Stewart“Evagrius Ponticus and the ‘Eight Generic Logismoi,’” in In the Garden of Evil, ed. Richard Newhauser (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005), via Saint John's University“the schema of "eight generic thoughts" devised in the Egyptian desert by Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345-99).”Read the original at digitalcommons.csbsju.edu ↗ Source 21Britannica“Sloth”: one of the seven deadly sins, also called acedia“The seven deadly sins were first enumerated by St. Gregory the Great (540–604)”Read the original at britannica.com ↗ Source 23Blue Letter BibleStrong's G4710 spoudē (“diligence,” “earnestness,” “zeal”)Read the original at blueletterbible.org ↗

Put those together and sloth comes into focus. It is measured by what you leave untended. A man can work sixty hours a week and still be a sluggard toward his own body, his own household, and his own country.

Start where the Bible starts. “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”²⁴

Then God gave man work. Before sin, before thorns, He put Adam in the garden “to dress it and to keep it.” That was the first job ever given to a man, and it came before the fall, not because of it.²⁵

Scripture never says a man owns nothing. It says, “Thou shalt not steal.”²⁶ What you work for is yours. But a believer has given it all to Christ. He keeps it now the way Adam kept the garden.

Jesus put it in a story. A master leaves on a long journey and hands his property to three servants. One gets five talents, one gets two, one gets one. The first two put the money to work and double it. The third digs a hole and buries it.

When the master comes back, the third servant hands over exactly what he was given. He did not steal it or gamble it away. He never used it. And the master’s verdict is, “Thou wicked and slothful servant.”

Jesus also gave the measure. “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” So start with the least and work outward.

Your body. About four in ten American adults are obese,²⁷ and many of them work hard every day. Illness, hardship, old age, and disability explain some of that, and God knows the difference. But a lot of us simply do not tend what we were handed.

Source 27

Source 27CDCNational Center for Health Statistics, Data Brief No. 508: adult obesity 40.3%, August 2021–August 2023 (September 2024)“During August 2021–August 2023, the prevalence of obesity in adults was 40.3%”Read the original at cdc.gov ↗

Your house. Your marriage. Your children, who learn what matters by watching what you keep up and what you let slide. Paul wrote that a man who will not provide for his own household “is worse than an infidel.”

Then your street. Your town. The ring keeps widening, and the question at every ring is the same. Were you unable, or unwilling?

Now the widest ring. You did not pick your century or your country. God placed you.

And look where He placed you. For most of history, believers lived under leaders they never chose. You choose yours. That idea did not start in 1776. Moses told the tribes of Israel to pick wise men from among themselves, and he would make them “rulers over you.”^28,29 In this country, every citizen has a share in that choice. That share is a talent, handed to you by providence.

Source 29

Source 29John CalvinInstitutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 20, Section 8 (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)“an aristocracy bordering on popular government”Read the original at ccel.org ↗

When the Anabaptists of his day taught that Christians should have no part in government, John Calvin answered them. He called civil government “the most sacred, and by far the most honourable, of all stations in mortal life.”³⁰ Charles Spurgeon, the London preacher, wrote, “Every God-fearing man should give his vote with as much devotion as he prays.”³¹

Sources 30–31

Source 30John CalvinInstitutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Chapter 20, Section 4, answering the Anabaptists (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)Read the original at ccel.org ↗ Source 31Christian History Institute“The Political Force,” Christian History 29 (1991), quoting Charles Spurgeon on voting“Every God-fearing man,” he wrote, “should give his vote with as much devotion as he prays.”Read the original at christianhistoryinstitute.org ↗

So what have we done with it? In the 2024 presidential election, roughly a third of eligible Americans did not vote.^32,33 In local elections, the ones that pick your sheriff, your school board, and your judges, turnout often falls below one in five.³⁴ Many of the people who stayed home were in church the Sunday before.^35,36

Sources 32–36

Source 32Ballotpedia“Analysis of voter turnout in the 2024 general election”: 63.7% of eligible voters (University of Florida Election Lab)“The overall turnout of eligible voters in the 2024 general election was 63.7%.”Read the original at ballotpedia.org ↗ Source 33U.S. Census Bureau“2024 Presidential Election Voting and Registration Tables Now Available” (2025): 65.3% of citizens of voting age voted“65.3% (or 154 million people) voted”Read the original at census.gov ↗ Source 34Harvard Kennedy School Data-Smart City Solutions“Map of the Month: Who Votes for Mayor?” (October 31, 2017), a Portland State University study: 18 of 50 cities below 15%“in 18 of the 50 cities studied, turnout was below 15 percent.”Read the original at datasmart.hks.harvard.edu ↗ Source 35Arizona Capitol Times“Study says 32 million Christians likely not to vote” (October 14, 2024), on research by George Barna, Arizona Christian University“32 million Christians who are regular churchgoers are likely to stay home this election.”Read the original at azcapitoltimes.com ↗ Source 36The Daily Signal“Study: Christian Voters Responsible for Trump Victory” (November 22, 2024), on George Barna's post-election report“Overall, 56% of self-identified Christians voted in 2024.”Read the original at dailysignal.com ↗

They would bring a meal to a sick neighbor. They would help him mend his fence. But when it came time to vote, they left the field to somebody else. Solomon wrote, “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.”³⁷

Esther was placed, too. She had become queen of Persia when a law was signed to destroy her people. If she spoke, she risked her life. If she kept quiet, she risked it anyway. Mordecai asked whether she had been made queen “for such a time as this.”³⁸ That question belongs to every believer holding a ballot.³⁹

Some sincere Christians still hold the view Calvin answered: that believers should keep out of government. They say we are called to be separate from the world, that politics is the world’s business, and that the believer’s citizenship is in heaven. That last part is true. Paul says so in Philippians.⁴⁰ And some believers abstain out of real conviction after real prayer. Indifference is another matter, and it is far more common.

So listen to how Jesus prayed for His own. “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.”⁴¹ He did not ask for them to be taken out. He asked for them to be kept. Paul taught the Corinthians the same thing.⁴² Separate means clear of sin. It never meant out of the world.

When God’s people were carried off to Babylon, a pagan empire, Yahweh sent this word through Jeremiah: “Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it.”⁴³ Joseph ran Egypt’s grain supply. Daniel served in the courts of Babylon and Persia. Esther was queen of Persia. Nehemiah was cupbearer to its king. None of them belonged to those kingdoms. All of them served there. But none of them chose who ruled over them. They served as slaves, exiles, and subjects. We still have that choice. Israel was carried into Babylon after generations of not listening.⁴⁴ Freedom left untended can be lost the same way.

That placement includes your citizenship. American citizenship is a gift. You thank the giver, and you put the gift to use. Citizenship mattered in Bible times, too.

Look at Paul. God had given him Roman citizenship, and he used it. In Philippi he made the magistrates answer for beating a Roman without trial. In Jerusalem, tied down for a flogging, he asked the centurion, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?”⁴⁵ The whips were put away. The commander came and told Paul he had paid “a great sum” for his own citizenship. Paul answered, “But I was free born.” Most of us were, too. We did not pay for it. It was handed to us.

Soon after, the Lord told him, “So must thou bear witness also at Rome.”⁴⁶ God had settled where Paul was going. His citizenship was how he got there. Two years later, standing before a Roman governor, he said four words: “I appeal unto Caesar.”⁴⁷ Only a citizen could say them.

He reached Rome under guard and wrote letters we still read. One of them ends, “All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household.”⁴⁸

Using his citizenship did not make Paul worldly. It carried the gospel into the emperor’s house.

There is a second objection, and it sounds like faith. God is sovereign. He raises up kings and removes them. The world lies under the evil one for now, and it will get worse before Christ returns. So why bother?

I believe every word Scripture says about God’s sovereignty. And that doctrine has never taught that God works without means. He ordained that Paul would reach Rome, and He ordained the appeal that got him there. He ordains harvests, and He ordains plowing. Sitting still and calling it trust has another name. It is fatalism, and the Reformers rejected it.⁴⁹

Source 49

Source 49Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)Chapter 5, Section 3 (Bible Presbyterian Church)“God in his ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.”Read the original at bpc.org ↗

Nor does Scripture treat all rulers as the same. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”⁵⁰ Paul tells Timothy to pray for kings “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.”⁵¹ That prayer makes no sense unless one government can leave the church in peace and another can crush it. There are degrees.

You can see the difference in our own day. In 2023, Nicaragua’s government sentenced Bishop Rolando Álvarez to twenty-six years in prison after he refused to be sent into exile. He is reported to have said, “Let the others be free. I will endure their punishment.”⁵² Less than a year later, the government put him on a plane to Rome anyway.⁵³ In China, crosses had been torn from at least fifteen hundred churches in a single province by 2016.⁵⁴ And in 2026, North Korea again ranks as the hardest place on earth to follow Christ.⁵⁵

Sources 52–55

Source 52NPR via High Plains Public Radio“Nicaragua sentences Catholic bishop to 26 years in prison” (February 10, 2023)“Let the others be free. I will endure their punishment.”Read the original at hppr.org ↗ Source 53Vatican News“Nicaraguan bishops Álvarez, Mora and priests freed” (January 2024)Read the original at vaticannews.va ↗ Source 54Freedom House“Christianity: Religious Freedom in China,” from The Battle for China's Spirit (2017): crosses removed from at least 1,500 churches“crosses had been removed from the rooftops or façades of [at] least 1,500 churches”Read the original at freedomhouse.org ↗ Source 55Evangelicals Now“North Korea tops 2026 World Watch List” (Open Doors)“it's North Korea where believers are facing the most extreme persecution.”Read the original at e-n.org.uk ↗

Here is the trap. A Christian decides the country is going down regardless, so he stays home. Enough Christians stay home, and the country goes the way he predicted. He takes that as proof he was right. He helped write the ending.

No election will bring in the kingdom of God. Christ does that. But the servant with one talent was never asked to bring in the kingdom. He was asked what he did with the one talent.⁵⁶

So you go. Who do you vote for?

You are not electing a pastor. You are choosing a magistrate in a fallen world from a short list of sinners. No candidate will be clean. Waiting for a clean one is one more way to bury the talent.

The standard is simpler than we make it, and it is not ours to set. God has already defined it. Life: man is made in the image of God.⁵⁷ Marriage: male and female, made one flesh.⁵⁸ Justice: the same law for the poor and the mighty.⁵⁹ Truth: God’s word alone.^60,61 Hold each candidate and each platform up against that, and choose the one who will do the least damage. John MacArthur put it plainly: vote for “the most righteous option,” knowing you cannot vote righteousness into being.⁶²

Source 62

Source 62The Way of Improvement“John MacArthur rejects Christian nationalism” (February 27, 2024), reporting a Grace Community Church Q&A“When we come to vote, we want to vote for that which is the most righteous option.”Read the original at thewayofimprovement.blog ↗

Do the work. Read the platform. Learn the names at the bottom of the ballot. Fewer than one in five of us vote in those races, and that is the corner of the field closest to your house.³⁴ Pray, then cast your vote. You have done your duty. Leave the outcome with God. He will decide it, and your vote is one of the means He uses. Whatever happens, keep the fruit of the Spirit.⁶³ You can disagree with your neighbor at the ballot box and still love him on Monday.

Paul told Titus that believers should be “ready to every good work.”⁶⁴ The steward is not required to win. And James wrote, “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”⁶⁵ You know now. Go do the good.

There is one more thing Scripture shows about a field left untended. It does not stay empty. Someone else plants it.

Near the end of the Bible, Jesus sent a letter to the church in Ephesus. “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent… or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick [church] out of his place.”^66,67 Ephesus was a jewel of the early church. Walk there today and you will find the Basilica of St. John in ruins on its hill. At the foot of that hill stands a mosque, built in 1375.⁶⁸

Sources 67–68

Source 67Revelation 1:20Legacy Standard Bible (LSB®). Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com“the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”Read the original at read.lsbible.org ↗ Source 68Madain Project“Ayasuluk Hill”: the İsa Bey Mosque stands below the Basilica of St. John“situated below the basilica of Saint John”Read the original at madainproject.com ↗

Egypt, where the gospel was carried in the first century.⁶⁹ Syria, where believers were first called Christians. The land where Jesus walked. All of them were Christian for centuries. Then, in the 630s and 640s, the armies of a new faith swept through.⁷⁰ Christians were allowed to live, but as a lower class, paying a special tax for the privilege, and often forbidden to build new churches or to win converts.⁷¹ Over the centuries, the churches thinned. Today the Copts of Egypt are a remnant: by the highest estimates, one Egyptian in ten.^69,72 Those believers never held a ballot. They were never asked who should rule them.

Sources 69–72

Source 69CNEWA“Egypt”: Christian roots from St. Mark in the first century; Copts about 10% by traditional count“Egypt's Christians trace their roots to the apostle St. Mark”Read the original at cnewa.org ↗ Source 70Kwantlen Polytechnic University“The Rashidun and the Early Muslim Conquests”: Syria 636–637, Egypt 639–642“In 636 Muslim forces destroyed the major Syrian Byzantine force at the Battle of the Yarmuk River.”Read the original at kpu.pressbooks.pub ↗ Source 71Christian History Institute“The Pact of Umar”: no new churches, no converts, the jizya tax“manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it.”Read the original at christianhistoryinstitute.org ↗ Source 72Pew Research Center“How many Christians are there in Egypt?”: about 5% by census and survey data“Christians make up 10% or more of the country's approximately 80 million people.”Read the original at pewresearch.org ↗

For nine centuries, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was the greatest church in the world.⁷³ On the twenty-ninth of May, 1453, the city fell to the Ottoman sultan. Its people were killed or carried off as slaves, and within days the great church was a mosque.⁷⁴ In 1934 it became a museum.⁷³ In 2020 it became a mosque again.⁷⁵

Sources 73–75

Source 73Fordham University“Hagia Sophia & Its Transformations”: dedicated 537; mosque 1453; museum 1934“Justinian’s new church was dedicated in 537”Read the original at crc.blog.fordham.edu ↗ Source 74World History Encyclopedia“1453: The Fall of Constantinople”“Perhaps 4,000 were killed outright, and over 50,000 were shipped off as slaves.”Read the original at worldhistory.org ↗ Source 75NPR“Turkey Converts Istanbul's Iconic Hagia Sophia Back Into A Mosque” (July 10, 2020)“In 1934, Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's Cabinet decreed that it be turned into a museum.”Read the original at npr.org ↗

And the story did not end in the Middle Ages. Between 1915 and 1923, under the Ottoman government, Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians were driven from their homes, marched to their deaths, and massacred by the hundreds of thousands. For the Armenians alone, the toll may have reached a million.^76,77 In September of 1922, the Christian quarters of Smyrna burned.^78,79 Smyrna was one of the churches Jesus never rebuked.⁸⁰ Its people were faithful, and still it burned. Faithfulness was never a promise of safety. But neglect has always been an invitation to loss.

Sources 76–79

Source 76U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum“The Armenian Genocide (1915–16): Overview”: at least 664,000 and possibly 1.2 million killed“At least 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million Armenians were killed.”Read the original at encyclopedia.ushmm.org ↗ Source 77World Without Genocide“Ottoman Christian Genocide”: Assyrian and Greek victims, 1915–1923“perpetrators sought to purge the Ottoman Empire of all Christian minorities.”Read the original at worldwithoutgenocide.org ↗ Source 78Near East Relief Historical Society“The Burning of Smyrna” (September 1922)“The destruction of the ancient city of Smyrna marked a turning point for Near East Relief.”Read the original at neareastrelief.org ↗ Source 79JSTOR Daily“September 1922: The Great Fire of Smyrna” (September 22, 2022)“only the Jewish and the Muslim quarters survived.”Read the original at daily.jstor.org ↗

Yahweh’s own people learned it first. Jesus stood over Jerusalem and wept: “thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”⁸¹ Within a generation, the temple was gone.⁸² The Dome of the Rock stands on that mount today.⁸³

Sources 82–83

Source 82Britannica“Temple of Jerusalem”: Second Temple destroyed by Rome in 70 CE“The Second Temple was completed in 515 BCE and destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.”Read the original at britannica.com ↗ Source 83Smarthistory“The Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra)”: completed 691–692, atop the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount)“Sitting atop the Haram al-Sharif, the highest point in old Jerusalem”Read the original at smarthistory.org ↗

Now look closer to home. In November of 2021, the voters of Hamtramck, Michigan, elected a mayor and a city council on which every member was Muslim, the first in the nation.⁸⁴ That same month, Dearborn elected its first Muslim mayor.⁸⁵ They registered. They showed up. They saw the gift for what it is.

Sources 84–85

Source 84Scripps News via Denver7“This city in Michigan elected its first all-Muslim city council” (January 19, 2022)“becoming the first in the country to elect a city council and mayor who are all of the Muslim faith”Read the original at denver7.com ↗ Source 85Michigan Public“Abdullah Hammoud voted first Arab-American and Muslim mayor of Dearborn” (November 3, 2021)“The City of Dearborn has elected its first Arab-American and Muslim mayor.”Read the original at michiganpublic.org ↗

And in November of 2025, New York City elected its first Muslim mayor.⁸⁶ More than half the people in that region call themselves Christian.⁸⁷ Yet in the most-watched race in a generation, more than three in five eligible New Yorkers stayed home.⁸⁸ This is not a complaint. It is a mirror. And it is worth looking into.

Sources 86–88

Source 86Associated Press via Bangor Daily News“Divided Jewish leaders react with warnings and hope as New York elects its first Muslim mayor” (November 5, 2025)“Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York’s first Muslim mayor”Read the original at bangordailynews.com ↗ Source 87Pew Research CenterReligious Landscape Study 2023–24: New York City metro area (57% identify as Christians)“57% of adults in the New York City metro area identify as Christians.”Read the original at pewresearch.org ↗ Source 88Bloomberg Law“New York City Mayor's Race Sees Most Votes Cast Since 1969”: about 38% of eligible voters“the highest percentage – 38% – of eligible voter turnout since 2001.”Read the original at news.bloomberglaw.com ↗

But the differences run deeper than a name. Christ told His followers to love their enemies, and to pray for those who persecute them. Under Islamic law as its classical scholars taught it, a man who leaves the faith may be put to death, and in at least ten nations that law still stands.⁸⁹ In February of 2015, twenty-one men were led onto a beach in Libya and beheaded on camera. Twenty were Coptic Christians. The twenty-first was a young laborer, believed to be from Ghana. When his captors questioned him, he answered, “Their God is my God.”⁹⁰ Remember them, the next time it seems the gift does not matter.

Sources 89–90

Source 89National Secular Society“Death sentence for apostasy in nearly a dozen countries, report says” (Humanists International, 2021)“Apostasy is punishable with death in nearly a dozen countries, according to a new report from Humanists International.”Read the original at secularism.org.uk ↗ Source 90Barnabas Aid“Egyptian Church Claims Remains of Last of 21 Christians Martyred by Islamic State in Libya” (October 8, 2020): Matthew Ayariga“Their God is my God”Read the original at barnabasaid.org ↗

Look across the ocean. In July of 2016, two men walked into a small church in Normandy during morning Mass and killed its eighty-five-year-old priest, Father Jacques Hamel, at the altar.⁹¹ In October of 2020, three people were killed inside the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Nice.⁹² In England, an official inquiry found that in one town alone, Rotherham, about fourteen hundred children were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013, and that officials hesitated to act, in part for fear of being called racist.⁹³

Sources 91–93

Source 91Vatican News“Remembering Fr. Jacques Hamel on the anniversary of his killing” (July 26, 2018)“slain before the altar”Read the original at vaticannews.va ↗ Source 92The Brussels Times“Three dead in knife attack in French basilica” (Notre-Dame, Nice, October 29, 2020)“At least three people died and several were injured, according to the police.”Read the original at brusselstimes.com ↗ Source 93Al Jazeera“UK town ‘ignored abuse of 1,400 children’” (August 26, 2014), on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham 1997–2013 (the Jay Report)“Authorities in England failed to prevent the physical and sexual abuse of 1,400 children in one town over a 16-year period”Read the original at aljazeera.com ↗

And in the summer of 2026, tens of thousands of people, most of them young men from Morocco, crossed the border into Ceuta.⁹⁴ Nearly all were sent back; about two thousand stayed. Within a month, prosecutors were investigating more than twenty sexual assaults.⁹⁵ Police were posted outside the schools.⁹⁶ One mother said, “They invaded our home, they stole my freedom.”⁹⁷

Sources 94–97

Source 94AFP via The Peninsula“Spain says 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta, 70,000 returned” (August 4, 2026)“We have reasonably established that 72,000 people irregularly entered Spain and 70,000 have already left”Read the original at thepeninsulaqatar.com ↗ Source 95Moncloa.com via Europa Press“La Fiscalía eleva a 23 las agresiones sexuales investigadas en Ceuta: el balance que agrava la crisis migratoria” (September 1, 2026): 23 sexual assaults under investigation“ha elevado a 23 las agresiones sexuales investigadas en Ceuta”Read the original at moncloa.com ↗ Source 96Christian Science Monitor“A migration crisis in Ceuta strains a tradition of coexistence” (September 30, 2026): police posted outside schools“In early September, Ceuta authorities deployed police officers outside schools for drop-off and pickup”Read the original at csmonitor.com ↗ Source 97Ynet“Stench, violence and sirens: how Ceuta became Europe's migration nightmare” (resident Francesca González)“They invaded our home, they stole my freedom”Read the original at ynetnews.com ↗

That is what sloth looks like in a nation. Not a man asleep on a couch, but a people who vote on feelings instead of facts, who never ask the one question that matters: what will these people do with the power I hand them? Europe did not ask. Its leaders made choices about who would come in, and about what they would look away from, and the people let them. The cost landed on ordinary families. In Normandy, an old priest died at his own altar. In Rotherham, the children paid. In Ceuta, police stood outside the schools.

The people who made those decisions rarely have to live with them. The people who live with them stopped paying attention long before. And a free people who stop paying attention will wake up as strangers in their own towns, no longer sure their daughters are safe on their own streets. It happened across the ocean. It does not have to happen here. America still has the choice.

Here is what we were called to be: a people set apart. Yahweh told Israel, “Ye shall be holy unto me.”⁹⁸ Peter told the church the same: “Be ye holy; for I am holy.”⁹⁹

For most of history, Christians could not shape the world around them. In Rome they were crucified and thrown to the beasts.¹⁰⁰

Source 100

Source 100TacitusAnnals 15.44, on Nero's persecution of the Christians (Livius.org)“Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses”Read the original at livius.org ↗

Here it was different. Most of the men who founded this country were Christians. They were taught the Bible and its principles, and they built on them. In the political writings of their generation, no book was quoted more.^101,102 They wrote that all men are created equal. That our rights come from our Creator, not from a king. That a free people answer to God.¹⁰³

Sources 101–103

Source 101Donald S. Lutz“The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review 78, no. 1 (1984): 189–197“a citation count drawn from these 916 items as a surrogate measure of the relative influence of European writers upon American political thought”Read the original at cambridge.org ↗ Source 102Daniel L. Dreisbach“Does Biblical Literacy Enrich Constitutional Literacy?” Canopy Forum, Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion (September 23, 2020)“the Bible was cited more frequently than any European writer or even any European school of thought”Read the original at canopyforum.org ↗ Source 103National Archives“Declaration of Independence: A Transcription”“all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”Read the original at archives.gov ↗

Our faith built that. I believe no nation since ancient Israel was ever founded so plainly on the principles of Yahweh’s word.

Christians who stood together on His word shaped this country. Few Christians in history were ever handed that. And we failed to honor it. We stopped tending what Yahweh placed in our care. That is acedia.

But this culture has been sold another creed. It came out of Marxist classrooms,¹⁰⁴ and it calls itself diversity. It sorts people into the oppressed and the oppressors. It says no way of life is better than another, and every belief is welcome. That is what it says. Herbert Marcuse, one of its best-known teachers, wrote what it means: true tolerance is “intolerance against movements from the Right.”¹⁰⁵ He meant conservatives. It sounds like love. It is not. Love, Paul wrote, “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.”¹⁰⁶

Sources 104–105

Source 104Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy“Critical Theory” (Jeffrey Flynn, 2023)“the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School”Read the original at plato.stanford.edu ↗ Source 105Herbert Marcuse“Repressive Tolerance,” in A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Beacon Press, 1965)“Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left”Read the original at marcuse.org ↗

A nation that makes room for every creed soon has no room left for its own. It becomes a table full of hungry men and one plate. The whole begins to eat itself.

Paul watched the same thing start in a church. The believers at Corinth tolerated open sin among their own, and were proud of it. So Paul reminded them of Passover. Before that feast, every Jewish home swept out every crumb of leaven, the yeast that makes bread rise. “A little leaven,” he wrote, “leaveneth the whole lump.”¹⁰⁷

Leaven does not announce itself. A pinch of yeast works quietly through the whole batch of dough until all of it has risen. That is how a church is lost. And when the churches stop standing on God’s word, the nation is not far behind.

Go back to the letters in Revelation. Jesus wrote to seven churches. Five He rebuked, and three of those five for the same quiet sin. Ephesus was still working hard. He told them so. Then He said, “Thou hast left thy first love.”¹⁰⁸ The work went on. The caring stopped. To Sardis: “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”¹⁰⁹ To Laodicea, which said, “I am rich… and have need of nothing”: lukewarm.¹¹⁰ Three churches. One sickness. Acedia.

But to Philadelphia, a church He never rebuked, He wrote, “I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word.”¹¹¹ Not great strength. A little. Enough to walk through the door. When every other Christian city in that land had fallen, Philadelphia still stood. It held until 1390.^112,113

Sources 112–113

Source 112Shadows of Constantinople“The Fall of Philadelphia (1390), the Last Roman City in Western Anatolia”“Philadelphia was the last free Roman city in western Anatolia.”Read the original at shadowsofconstantinople.com ↗ Source 113The Byzantine Legacy“Philadelphia” (David Hendrix)“finally fell to Bayezid I in 1390”Read the original at thebyzantinelegacy.com ↗

Go back to the third servant. When the master returned, he gave his reason. “I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth.”¹¹⁴

Afraid of getting it wrong. Afraid it would not matter. So he did nothing and called it caution, and his master called it sloth.

An old rabbi named Tarfon said it this way: you are not required to finish the work, and you are not free to walk away from it.¹¹⁵

Source 115

Source 115SefariaMishnah, Pirkei Avot 2:16, Rabbi Tarfon“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”Read the original at sefaria.org ↗

You were given a body. Tend it. You were given a house and a family. Tend them. You were given a town, and a country where an ordinary citizen has a say in who governs. Almost no believer in history could say that. You can.

After September 11, 2001, America went back to church. The pews filled. By Christmas, they were as empty as before. We remembered for about two months.^116,117

Sources 116–117

Source 116Gallup“Religion in the Aftermath of September 11”: weekly attendance 41%, 47%, 41%“church attendance as measured by this question has settled right back down to where it was.”Read the original at news.gallup.com ↗ Source 117Barna Group“Five Years Later: 9/11 Attacks Show No Lasting Influence on Americans' Faith”Read the original at barna.com ↗

The field in Proverbs did not grow over in a day. “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.”¹¹⁸ One skipped season at a time.

But the lampstand has not been removed from the church in this country. The gift is still here.

“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.”¹¹⁹

If we will not plow our field and tend it, somebody else will.

Go tend the field.